Pakistan buries troops killed in NATO attack

Soldiers carry the flag-draped casket of their colleague Najeebullah, who was killed in a NATO cross-border attack one day earlier, to his grave in his hometown of Charsadda in northwest Pakistan Nov. 27. On Sunday, Pakistan buried 24 troops killed in the air attack that has pushed a crisis in relations between the United States and an ally it needs to fight militancy towards rupture.

msnbc.com news services report:

"America is attacking our borders. The government should immediately break ties with it," said Naseema Baluch, a housewife attending the Karachi demonstration. "America wants to occupy our country but we will not let it do that."

U.S. and NATO officials are trying to defuse tensions but the soldiers' deaths are testing a bad marriage of convenience between Washington and Islamabad.

"This was a tragic unintended incident," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement, adding that he fully supported a NATO investigation that was under way. We will determine what happened, and draw the right lessons."

Pakistani Islamists burn a U.S. flag in protest of NATO strikes on Pakistani troops during a protest in Lahore on Nov. 27. NATO expressed regret over air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers as the United States sought to repair relations with Islamabad that plunged into crisis over the lethal attack. Pakistan has reacted with fury over the killings of two dozen soldiers, including two officers, in an "unprovoked" attack by NATO helicopters and fighter jets on two military posts on the border with Afghanistan early Saturday.

Arshad Arbab / EPA

Pakistani Army soldiers and officials attend the funeral of their comrades who were killed in NATO's airstrikes at Pakistani military check posts in Mohmand tribal agency, during their funeral in Peshawar, Pakistan, Nov. 27. Pakistani authorities on Nov. 26, closed NATO supply routes and ordered the U.S. military to vacate a base after airstrikes killed at least 24 Pakistani soldiers. Officials said two officers and 22 soldiers were killed and 13 troops wounded in the unprovoked action. Other unconfirmed reports said the casualty tolls could be higher.